Watch and Clock Escapements eBook

It could not have been long after man first became
cognizant of his reasoning faculties that he began
to take more or less notice of the flight of time.
The motion of the sun by day and of the moon and stars
by night served to warn him of the recurring periods
of light and darkness. By noting the position
of these stellar bodies during his lonely vigils,
he soon became proficient in roughly dividing up the
cycle into sections, which he denominated the hours
of the day and of the night. Primitive at first,
his methods were simple, his needs few and his time
abundant. Increase in numbers, multiplicity of
duties, and division of occupation began to make it
imperative that a more systematic following of these
occupations should be instituted, and with this end
in view he contrived, by means of burning lights or
by restricting the flowing of water or the falling
of weights, to subdivide into convenient intervals
and in a tolerably satisfactory manner the periods
of light.

These modest means then were the first steps toward
the exact subdivisions of time which we now enjoy.
Unrest, progress, discontent with things that be,
we must acknowledge, have, from the appearance of
the first clock to the present hour, been the powers
which have driven on the inventive genius of watch
and clockmakers to designate some new and more acceptable
system for regulating the course of the movement.
In consequence of this restless search after the best,
a very considerable number of escapements have been
invented and made up, both for clocks and watches;
only a few, however, of the almost numberless systems
have survived the test of time and been adopted in
the manufacture of the timepiece as we know it now.
Indeed, many such inventions never passed the experimental
stage, and yet it would be very interesting to the
professional horologist, the apprentice and even the
layman to become more intimately acquainted with the
vast variety of inventions made upon this domain since
the inception of horological science. Undoubtedly,
a complete collection of all the escapements invented
would constitute a most instructive work for the progressive
watchmaker, and while we are waiting for a competent
author to take such an exhaustive work upon his hands,
we shall endeavor to open the way and trust that a
number of voluntary collaborators will come forward
and assist us to the extent of their ability in filling
up the chinks.

PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED.

The problem to be solved by means of the escapement
has always been to govern, within limits precise and
perfectly regular, if it be possible, the flow of
the motive force; that means the procession of the
wheel-work and, as a consequence, of the hands thereto
attached. At first blush it seems as if a continually-moving
governor, such as is in use on steam engines, for
example, ought to fulfil the conditions, and attempts
have accordingly been made upon this line with results
which have proven entirely unsatisfactory.